More right wing work

    I worked on the right wing outside today for about three hours.  I corrected a mistake in feather overlapping that I missed until I reviewed my feather drawings last night.  It would take too long to describe the mistake, but it had to do with how the outer wing with its primary feathers slides under the inner wing with its secondaries.  Anyway, I fixed it.

    Last night I sketched the coverts and some of the contour feathers in pencil on the wing, and today I outlined them and shaped them.  I used a small diamond ball, small diamond flame, and two of my carbide.  I changed my working position a little moving from working with the carving on the table to having the carving in my lap.  I found last night while drawing the feather outlines on the carving that I could get to all parts of the carving more easily if I held it in my lap.  Worked well today, especially with some of the tricky areas that I had left undone because they were a challenge to get to.

    The results of today's work are shown in the two photos below of the topside and underside of the right wing.  I am still working on just one wing.  Once I have solved on one wing the logistical problems about what to carve first and how to reach the tricky parts, the other wing will carve much more soothly.

    I am working from the back edge of the wing towards the front.  The reason for this has to do with the fact that the feathers are arranged like roof shingles.  Shingling a roof starts at the bottom edge and moves toward the peak; carving feathers on a bird wing proceeds in the same way, from the "bottom"(the trailing edge of the wing) to the "top" (the leading edge of the wing).  You can see in the photos above, particularly the lower one, the difference between the lighter, carved portion of the wing and the uncarved, darker strip along the leading edge.  The wood is darker there because I drew, erased, and redrew the feather pattern several times until I was satisfied.  Some of my fellow carvers warned me that this would happen, and they were right.

    Productive day today, no bright sun but plenty of natural light and no rain.

    Total work time = 40 hours